Dear Steve, it's nice to know there are others out there who got into
palaeoanthropology after reading those books. I loved them when I was
growing up.
Last time I heard from Jean was in 1994 when she said she was still
working on it. She is apparently very busy though; I was actually writing
to her to ask for advice on a project and she took the time to pull loads
of material from her files and send it to me. She was also in the middle
of organising a conference (she sponsors a lot of palaeoanthropology
stuff) and I've heard other researchers say that she's taken a lot of
time over corresponding with them too. So it looks like as her writing
grows, she gets more of her time taken up by people like me. But I'm sure
the fifth book will surface eventually - I think she's planning six.
I don't know whether she's a user of the Web - if so I hope she doesn't
see this embarrassing fan letter. I'm doing a PhD on neanderthals now and
I still reread her stuff all the time. And it's certainly true about
researched details - all the sites, finds, dates, flora and fauna are
really real. Some of the characters are based on actual buried skeletons
so in a sense she's writing about real people. I thought it was really
weird when I found out that Creb was a real person and had actually lived
at Shanidar!
Anyway I could ramble on admiringly for ages about this so I'd better put
a sock in it. Cheers, Jennie